Confession
by chuuux3
Summary: Taichi Mashima is having a hard time controlling his feelings for his childhood friend Chihaya Ayase. Is he gonna run away from this feeling or fight it head on?
1. Chapter 1

_Chihaya_.

Her name held an important space in his heart. Her beautiful smile never fails to keep him breathless each time.

Taichi let out a rough sigh. He already knows his best friend would never look at him the same way he does with her but he can't help thinking about her everytime.

He looked out into the city from the window of the train and pictured her smiling face. He closed his eyes and tried to bring back her harmonious voice and her soothing laugh in his head. It always calmed him down and gave him that strangely good feeling inside.

When he opened his eyes, he looked around the deserted, solitary carriage.

_Chihaya…_He thought… _I need you._

He wanted to see her now and he wasn't going to be patient about it. He decided that he'll stop in the next station and run to her house. He wanted to let Chihaya know everything about his feelings. She had a strong grip of Taichi's heart in her hand which made it hard for him to easily brush it off and forget about his love for her and he didn't wanna live another day keeping his feelings for her any longer.

Afraid of being rejected and afraid that he might lose her, he had always locked his true feelings for her ever since childhood.

When he got off from the train, he held his schoolbag tightly and ran as fast as he could, heading towards the exit and into the familiar street of Chihaya's neighbourhood.

The wind brushed his brown messy hair. The coolness of the breeze stroked his face as he hurriedly ran to his sweet destination.

He was so excited and nervous, he couldn't wait any longer. He must see her. He must tell her everything.

He saw the Ayase's residence and his heart beated faster. He didn't know if it was from the running or if it was the excitement building up inside him. He ran to the front of Chihaya's house, ready for the next best thing.

_Beep, beep. _His phone notified a text. He grabbed his cellphone from his pocket and read the text.

His running came to a stop.

It was from his girlfriend. All of a sudden, all the excitement built inside him came crashing down. He then felt guilt, confusion and nervousness, in a bad way.

_The text read: "Taichi-kun, I'll be waiting outside the station tomorrow. Please don't forget." _

He had forgotten all about his girlfriend. He was so oblivious to everything but Chihaya and the love for her inside him.

_What was I thinking? Chihaya wouldn't possibly hear me out. _

_She'll think it's a joke. It's me…she definitely won't take it seriously. _

He gripped the phone tightly in his hand. The screen on his phone appeared blurry to him as the coward side of him slowly took over. All the excitement and life in his eyes disappeared on just a single second.

"Taichi?" a familiar, serene voice broke his thoughts. It had a lovely ring to his ear which was enough to quicken his heartbeat again.

He turned around slowly to meet her mesmerising brown eyes.

The sun setting behind her almost blinded him. He could only see the shadow of a tall girl with her hair being swayed by the wind gently. He shielded his eyes with his hand from the harsh sunset and was able to see the smiling face of the girl he admired ever since they were little.

"Chihaya…" he finally found the words. The word that was more important than any other words.

"I- I…Um..." He stammered as she walked towards him grabbing his hand away from his face.

"Did you come to practise karuta with me?" she asked, blocking the setting sun from his face as she drew her face closer to his with that mischievious smile of hers.

He suddenly remembered the time at her birthday party the karuta club surprised her in the middle of the night. The closeness of their faces, their lips just inches away from each other as he ate the cake from Chihaya's spoon.

He felt embarrassed as the memory vividly created an image in his head.

"Chi-chihaya, um…I just wanted to uh—"he struggled for the words. Where did the words go when he absolutely needed to say something? He didn't want to look deep into her eyes and be sucked in her beauty.

"Wanted to what? Do you need something?" she let go of his hand and backed away from him, looking at him with her arms across her chest, she continued "If you don't need anything, move away from my way so I can go into my own house."

He stood there frozen, unable to move and say a decent word other than her name. He looked at the ground while she looked at him and suddenly noticed something odd about him.

"Taichi, are you ok?" she asked, hitting him with her schoolbag, "Don't be so weird!"

After what seemed like eternity, he finally broke the long pause.

"Chihaya, I need to tell you something…" he started, he moved his gaze to her worried face and gulped, hoping for the best.

_Here it goes, _he thought to himself.

"I'm in love with you…Chihaya..."

Kay guys, I live in UK so some of the words may be spelled differently than the US :)


	2. Chapter 2

At last, he finally said the words out loud.

His palms were cold and clammy. He found it embarrassing to show this side of him to Chihaya.

They both stood there, in silence. He stood anxiously waiting for her response but she stood in front of him wide eyed and speechless.

Perhaps he made a really bad move…whether he'll risk their friendship over his unavoidable feeling?

_C'mon say something…_he repeated in his head. The awkward silence was broken by Chihaya's nervous laugh.

"Taichi, you're being weird" she laughed coarsely. The tone of her laugh told him that she too felt discomfort between them.

"Do you wanna come in and have a glass of juice? You're sweating. I'll tell mom not to interrupt us while we practice karuta in my room later." she said with a smile, trying to avoid the subject and his eyes which were still fixed on the ground.

She felt uncomfortable hearing this sort of thing from Taichi. Why is he making her feel this way?

She started to walk towards the house, walking pass the frozen figure of Taichi when his shaky hand moved and grabbed her arm gently.

"Ah." Chihaya whispered softly in surprise, turning her head to the side to see Taichi's stiffened reaction.

"Chihaya…" keeping his eyes on the ground "please take me seriously" he brought his chin up and looked over at Chihaya's surprised eyes. Each second, it felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest. The beat of his heart pounded painfully in his ears.

"I've been keeping this in ever since we were young. I can't…" he paused and looked away with embarrassment preparing himself for the next line of words that he can never casually say to anyone. "I can't keep it in anymore. This one sided crush…it's painful, Chihaya"

He squeezed his eyes shut realizing what he had just said was not a thing he would say and he wanted to melt on the floor with embarrassment. But, he was sick and tired of being a coward and running away from her.

Chihaya's cheeks blushed under her skin. She hasn't seen this side of Taichi and it made her feel extremely shy towards him however she couldn't believe any of it at all.

She couldn't believe that Taichi, her best friend, is standing in front of her house, confessing to her. All this time, she looked at him only as a friend and a brother. She thought it was just a silly joke he's pulling on her. It was always like this when they were younger. He'd tease her continuously, she'd get mad and he would enjoy every reaction she made. And right now, she bet this was one of his sick, childish jokes.

_Maybe he's waiting for me to freak out so he can make fun of me or maybe he's expecting me to talk sweet and he'll laugh at me afterwards! Well I'm not falling for it!_

She shook her arm away from his grasp, "Taichi! Stop messing around! It's not funny. You're crossing the line with all these teasing so quit it!" she exclaimed with a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"I know you wouldn't love me in that sort of way and you have a girlfriend. What are you trying to pull?"

She held her hands on her cheek and playfully mimicked a typical teenager girl in love, "Oh, Ta-kun!" she imitated the way Taichi's girlfriend say his name.

Taichi let his head drop. He let out a soft chuckle as he fought to hold back his tears.

"Here I am, scared and nervous, confessing my feelings and you take it as a joke." He shook his head and chuckled again softly, "But if it was Arata standing here, I bet you'd take him seriously!" he tried to hide his sorrowful face. He held back the tears that were ripping their way out to his eyes.

He swallowed back the big lump in his throat and stood there a little longer, waiting for her to accuse him of being wrong and to defend herself about Arata. But there was nothing but silence.

When he heard nothing from her except for her deep breaths he started to walk away feeling embarrassed yet again and incredibly stupid.

Chihaya was confused. She didn't know what to do or what to say. She froze on her spot, unable to do anything but watch Taichi's silhouette walk away into the setting sun.

And why did he bring Arata up? What was that all about? So he was serious? Guilt took over her. She didn't know what was going on. She didn't know Taichi felt that way towards her and she had treated him rudely.

She finally found her composure and moved her feet to run to him, apologize to him. She started to walk slowly but after a second she came to a halt.

If she caught up with him, what would she say? What would she do? Should she apologize and hug him like those characters she read in mangas? That's all that she can think of right now.

Just run to him and hug him and apologize for her rude actions but she couldn't move again.

All of a sudden she felt something warm trickling down her cheeks. She reached up and found her tears had escaped from her eyes without realizing it.

_Why am I crying? What is this feeling? _

Her legs gave up and she fell to the floor, putting her palms in front of her face crying as Taichi vanished out the corner of the street and the sun finally disappearing in the horizon and darkness took over.


End file.
